Longitudinal dispersion in spiral wound RO modules and its effect on the performance of batch mode RO operations

Tianyu Qiu, Philip A. Davies

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Operation of reverse osmosis (RO) in cyclic batch mode can in principle provide both high energy efficiency and high recovery. However, one factor that causes the performance to be less than ideal is longitudinal dispersion in the RO module. At the end of the batch pressurisation phase it is necessary to purge and then refill the module. During the purge and refill phases, dispersion causes undesirable mixing of concentrated brine with less concentrated feed water, therefore increasing the salt concentration and energy usage in the subsequent pressurisation phase of the cycle. In this study, we quantify the significance of dispersion through theory and experiment. We provide an analysis that relates the energy efficiency of the batch operation to the amount of dispersion. With the help of a model based on the analysis by Taylor, dispersion is quantified according to flow rate. The model is confirmed by experiments with two types of proprietary spiral wound RO modules, using sodium chloride (NaCl) solutions of concentration 1000 to 20,000 ppm. In practice the typical energy usage increases by 4% to 5.5% compared to the ideal case of zero dispersion.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-7
Number of pages7
JournalDesalination
Volume288
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2012

Bibliographical note

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Desalination. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Qiu, T & Davies, PA, 'Longitudinal dispersion in spiral wound RO modules and its effect on the performance of batch mode RO operations' Desalination, vol. 288 (2012) DOI 10.1016/j.desal.2011.11.054

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